Institut Géographique National

Institut Géographique National (IGN), one of the foremost centres of mapmaking and geographic research in France, specializing in aerial and ground surveys and maps; it is located in Paris. Its origins can be traced to a mapmaking group organized in 1719, the Engineers and Geographers for Armies and Camps, which produced several geodetic and triangulation maps of France. During the reign of Louis XV, the group made the first map of the whole of France, engraved on leather and preserved in the institute’s library. The group was reorganized in 1794 as the Polytechnical School and in 1887 was divided into the Geographic Service of the Armies and the Historical Service of the Armies. In 1940 the former was converted into the Institut Géographique National, which in 1967 became a public establishment of the state. The institute administers the National School of Geographic Sciences and has an extensive specialized library. It also has a small fleet of airplanes for aerial surveys.